Japan Auto Market struggles. March sales at 268,191 units (-18.7%) confirmed the harsh time with Q1 sales down 13.6%. Nissan is growing 8.3% and together with Suzuki is overtaking the market.
Market Trend and Outlook
The Japanese car market in March 2024 registered a total of 268,191 units, an 18.7% setback compared to the previous year. The third consecutive negative month after a positive trend that lasted for 16 months. YTD sales reach 663,311 units (-13.6%).
Looking at cumulative data up to March 2024, brand-wise Toyota maintained 1st with 291,608 sales (-27.9%), followed by Honda -up 1 spot- at 107,625 (+50.6%), Nissan at 76,655 registrations (+8.3%), Suzuki -up 1 spot- at 39,918 (+9.0%), Mazda -down 1 spot- with 27,112 sales (-41.5%), Subaru -up 1 spot- at 25,174 (+7.0%) and Lexus -down 1 spot- with 23,857 new registrations (-15.2%).
Mercedes gained 1 spot ranking in 8th with 13,429 sales (+2.3%), in front of Mitsubishi -down 1 spot- with 11,567 sales (-18.2%) and BMW -up 1 spot- closed the Top 10 with 7,647 new car registrations (-9.4%).
Looking at specific models the Honda N-Box was the best seller despite a 12.8% decrease in year-on-year sales, followed by the Toyota Corolla -up 1 spot- down 5.4%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
The Japanese auto-market in the last decade hasn’t performed amazingly. With its last great rise in 2012 (+26%), sales have remained between the 5 and 5.5 million range until 2019 with the peak reached in 2014.
With the global pandemic in 2020 the entire world economy slowed down drastically, stores and manufactures closing down and most economies taking a beating. The Japanese auto market was no exception falling 12.5% and bringing sales to the mid 4 million range. Although the Japanese market did drop compared to other economies it stood its ground relatively well.
In the last few years the Japanese auto market hasn’t recovered from the fall in 2020. External factors are to blame for this fall in demand for automotives: firstly the lack of raw materials has lead car manufacturers to raise prices and waiting times for cars; another reason is that more and more manufacturers are pushing towards electric that on average costs much more than a diesel or petrol car. This being said despite the terrible performance in 2022, the Japanese market still maintains one of the largest auto markets in the world.
In 2023 total sales were 2.65 million units, an expected 19.3% increase compared to the previous year.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
